


DVD Commentary: Of Dreams and Demons

by roguefaerie



Series: Of Dreams and Demons [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Author Commentary, Commentary, DVD Commentary Challenge, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 09:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30019656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: A DVD commentary on Of Dreams and Demons 'verse.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Of Dreams and Demons [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/755235
Collections: DVD Commentary Challenge





	DVD Commentary: Of Dreams and Demons

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Of Dreams and Demons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11286804) by [samidha (roguefaerie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/pseuds/samidha). 



_Of Dreams and Demons_ , affectionately known as ODAD ‘verse, was a ‘verse I wrote over a period of five years, put aside for another four, and then the ending of which was waiting for me when I returned to fandom in 2017.

I have an obsession with the pilot of this show. I identify with “tiny Dean” a ridiculous amount, as there are a lot of parallels between me and young Dean in particular. I’ve called him a number of things over the years, “tiny Dean” being the most recent way I refer to him. 

The fire in the pilot gets to me in a visceral way, and also the idea of the PTSD that Dean would have for it. So I’ve written a number of AUs that pretty much start with “the pilot, but different.” This was the first one.

I wrote this with a lot of encouragement from the gen side of fandom in particular, most notably tahirire and monicawoe. There were other people who enjoyed the fic over the long period of time I was writing it but they were in general the most involved in helping it along.

The most basic premise that I always begin with is that Dean loves Sam. The second most important aspect of this fic was Dean’s feeling of his duty to Sam. There are times that Sam is the voice of reason throughout this fic to explain to Dean that he is more than he thinks he is, that his duty and his life don’t begin and end with Sam.

At the same time, there is an element of Sam being used to it (because of course he is). 

In any case, the third element of this fic was dreamsharing, and then a telepathic bond. In some ways it assists them, and in other ways it’s there deliberately to assist Azazel. (I have a deep and abiding love for Azazel that predates my involvement in fandom in a direct way. Azazel is a common link in several of my favorite pieces of media. It’s also a common link of Kripke’s, but, honestly, ugh re: Kripke in general. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that Azazel is a great character every time he shows up.)

I would imagine that ODAD might be “gencest,” which some might agree with and some might not. Rather than being physically intimate, “the boys” are definitely mentally intimate. This fic was, essentially, as close as I would go to incest while trying to remain gen for gen readers to be able to enjoy the fic--and I think it proves out over time that they do. (Will they after this? I don’t know, that’s up to them.)

ODAD becomes choppy in the second “book” because it really was a ‘verse, where all of the disparate parts were separate.

In any case, dream sharing was one of the central threads of ODAD, which is why it begins with a dream of Mary’s. At the time I began the fic, the comic Origins had not yet come out, but it surfaced soon after I wrote the beginning chapter and there are some common elements.

Essentially the beginning was one way that Mary could, potentially, understand her situation.

I have always felt that in reality, both Dean and Sam have powers. This had nothing to do with Dean being a vessel (although they did _finally_ address that so many seasons in) and everything to do with a deleted scene in the pilot in which we see Dean using his intuition to get his ass back to Sam’s just in time.

Without this scene we could assume that Dean was still outside the apartment when the fire takes place. But with the deleted scene, Dean was driving away when a bunch of spooky happens (with his watch and so on) and he heads back. It’s more obvious that it is a decision that Dean makes to _go back_ , dammit, and it stayed with me.

So. Dean has powers. The powers serve the take-care-of-Sammy agenda, but the agenda is not just John’s agenda, it’s Azazel’s.

I love Azazel unashamedly.

The segment of the ‘verse that I considered to be “book 1” came to me piecemeal but very, very connected. Book 2 is much less connected because I continued to try to finish while seasons 5 and 6 were happening, whereas book 1 of it encompasses events up through season 4 that had given me the entire ‘verse concept altogether. 

The original draft of ODAD was about 67k, and then was trimmed down by a bit over 10k. There are still elements in it of a subplot I trimmed, wherein Dean was addicted to demon blood as much as Sam was. If you really look around for it, pieces of this plot might still exist somewhere, but they’re not on AO3.

I’ll be honest: It wasn’t a bad plot. It came from the way he relates to his Azazel-given powers in the first place and it was ambitious, but I had to cut it because it stalled the ‘verse entirely in the end and caused me to be depressed writing it. So out it went. There are still elements of addiction in the rest of the plot that I didn’t feel needed to be cut.

The other big thing to manage in this fic was that there are essentially two Sams and two Deans for a good chunk of the plot. There’s canon Sam and Dean who were experiencing the panic room in real time, and there’s young Sam and Dean who inadvertently find out about the panic room incident and circumstances force them to deal with it in some way.

Juggling this was _hard_ and I’m not going to go line by line to show every time it became unclear.

But I acknowledge completely that there are elements of it that are unclear.

I put this fic aside for 4 years in part because I was taking a break from fandom and I assumed I wouldn’t return, but also I felt that I didn’t know the ending. That was because I didn’t know the ending of Dean’s (partially) redacted plot. When I ripped out the 10k, everything about the fic made sense again. I had an ending--and while it isn’t the ending I originally planned, I am still fairly proud of how I was able to resolve strands of this novella.

There are still outtakes from ODAD which I kept as outtakes for my own purposes. They were all written together but bringing this fic together to be a ‘verse-in-one-piece was a whole side project that was taking over my mind, and finding everything was tough. I figured that there were a few things that I could leave to the side without detracting from the fic, but a ‘verse is a ‘verse and so most of it is in the original 53k, but some scenes are off on their own.

And as of right now this feels like what I’d like to say about ODAD ‘verse.

It did get a slight re-edit last time that I read through it but some glaring issues with the fic (like juggling 2 Sams and 2 Deans) are going to remain to a certain extent.

Some sections of the fic were written with the help of tahirire so tonal shifts are down to that but without that I doubt the fic would remain in it’s completed state. I am forever indebted to my friends who believed in this fic the most. :)


End file.
